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"Together we will build and teach

Author’s Note: This is a one-shot, and can be
considered part of the Unbroken Universe, although it is written within the
boundaries of canon as of Book 5.The
verses at the beginning and end of the story are from the Sorting Hat’s New
Song in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings of Harry
Potter belong to the wonderful and talented J.K. Rowling, whom I thank very
much for the loan of her playground.The
plot, however, and anything you do not recognize, belongs to me.I am not making any profit from the writing
and display of this story, except for gratification of my ego and quenching my
thirst to write.

"Together we will
build and teach!"
the four good friends decided
and never did they dream that they
might someday be divided,
for were there such friends anywhere
as Slytherin and Gryffindor? Unless it was the second pair
of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?
So how could it have gone so wrong?
How could such friendships fail?

Forget Me Not

A
Story of Broken Promises

28 May 995

There’s one thing that Muggles and wizards have in
common.In all those fairy tales and
ancient stories, the hero is always victorious and wins the fair lady.

But that wasn’t true for us.The good hero did not win, and neither of us
won the lady.Either
of them, in fact.

There is no real such thing as good or evil.There is only choice, and the gray area in
between.Though if one
must talk in shades of gray, I reside, most certainly, in something black.And green.And silver.Though
Godric never really did like my choice in colors.

It’s odd, isn’t it, that I should only now acknowledge
that he was once my friend?But as the
end comes, the war we fought for years has felt less and less important, and
the decades before the battles come more often to mind.The end no longer seems nearly so important as it once did, but perhaps that is only the
victor talking.The
victor with his regrets.And as for the end…

What an end it was.A friendship of 75 years had been dying for over a decade, but only
then, only when I drove that blade home into Godric’s heart, did everything
end.I’ll admit it.I used to even say so with pride, flinging my
head back and challenging the world to defy me.I, Salazar Slytherin, slew the great and noble Godric Gryffindor, the
hero of the Magical world.And though I
could have spared his life, I did not.I
chose to kill him, even though now there is not so much pride in my words.

They call me evil.I no longer deny it.

But he was once my friend.

***

The lake wasn't a lake in those days.Helga made it so, later, to cover the place
where Godric had fallen.She said it was
fitting, and that he would like his soul to rest between the school and the
outside world, defending Hogwarts—and her smile was so gentle—against all
foes.

Somehow, I don't even think she meant me.

24 September 989

Footsteps crunched
softly on the dry grass.A spell could
have silenced his movements, but there was no reason to.Everyone knew why he was there.

Ten years gone, and
Salazar Slytherin had returned to Hogwarts.He’d returned as he had once promised he would, to set the school to
rights and defy Gryffindor’s stranglehold on Britain’s magical education.But he had not returned alone.Scores of others followed him, their wands
ready and their eyes wide open—the witches and wizards with him knew that they
came to battle.They courted open
war.All of them understood the risks,
and accepted that the price they might have to pay would be high.Students all, they either were or had once
been; seven years in the making, these witches and wizards were from the first
four classes of Durmstrang Institute.

They came, however,
because they loved him, and he came because he loved the school.Hogwarts, no matter how much he tried to deny
it, was still a part of him, just like Slytherin was a part of Hogwarts.She was the oldest of the magical schools,
and the finest; almost a decade of work had gone into forming the school before
they had dared admit a single student.He had struggled to achieve as much in only three years at Durmstrang,
and had done so alone—where four had accomplished miracles together, one had
failed.

But he had not failed
completely.Salazar set his jaw.He had trained them and shaped them, and
these were good people: intelligent, strong, and uncorrupted by Muggle
prejudices and fears.Those men and
women were the future of the Wizarding world, and it pained him to drag them
along—but he had to.No matter how
powerful a wizard he was, even Salazar Slytherin could not take on the whole of
Hogwarts.There were seven classes and
three houses to face—and they would not have let him go alone.Even if he had wanted to try, his students
would have prevented him.And he was far
too sensible to argue.Though Salazar
had no qualms with fighting for what he believed, he wasn’t enough of a fool to
make himself a martyr.

No, that would
be Godric.

Despite himself,
Salazar had to smile.No one else would
dare stride across this open field to meet him, alone and hooded against the
rising cold.Spotting the cloaked figure
did not make him pause, though; Slytherin knew his mission, and even a former
friend would not be enough to sway him from his course.Especially not
Gryffindor.He smiled bloodlessly.Even though they hadn’t spoken in ten years,
Godric should have been smart enough to know better—but if there was anyone
with more bravery than sense, it was Godric Gryffindor.

“My
lord?”

Salazar inclined his
head slightly to the left but did not turn to face the speaker.It was Marvolo, of course, his faithful
deputy and sometime friend; no one else would have dared speak to him now.The movement was enough to tell Marvolo that
he was listening, despite the fact that Salazar refused to break stride.He kept his eyes fastened on Gryffindor, and
strode forward into the autumn morning, not at all feeling the chill on his
bare face.He had purpose, and that was
enough.

“They haven’t come out
yet.”

Fiona Marvolo’s voice
was quiet; she knew better than to worry the others. She was more his
apprentice than his student, after all, and knew him well.But if there had been any one of his
followers whom Salazar could have chosen to leave behind, it would have been
Fiona.That desire wasn’t a matter of
power, though, and it wasn’t really a matter of practicality, either.Salazar did like to tell himself that he
wanted to save her in case he did fail (no matter how unlikely that was), so
that Durmstrang could go on—but Fiona wouldn’t hear of that, and he couldn’t
deny that leaving her was one of his less intelligent ideas.Even if her tongue-lashing hadn’t been as
loud as it had been scathing.

“Do they think they
can hide?” Fiona asked softly, pressing still further.Her only fault, if there was one, was that
she talked too much, and Salazar repressed the urge to sigh.Instead, he kept his voice cold and
confident.

“They will come.”

He expected a big
battle, something epic and glorious and oh-so-typical of Godric.There was no chance, of course,
that his old friend would give the school up without a fight, and
Salazar was prepared to take it from him.

Fiona fell silent,
hearing the slight irritation in his voice.Salazar was focused now, looking beyond Godric’s shadowy form and to
Hogwarts herself.The site of the castle
could still take his breath away, even after so long—he could look at the high
walls and remember crafting them, bit by bit and stone by stone.His hands and his magic had shaped that
castle, side by side with three good friends and working in unity that they
would never have again.She was the
first stone castle in Britain,
he knew, and once they had wondered what to name her, but finally the castle,
the grounds, and the school had simply remained Hogwarts.Salazar had been tempted towards something
grander, but Helga’s common sense had won in the end.Elegant simplicity, Rowena had termed the
choice—though of course, she’d done it in Latin.

Finally, he stopped,
forcing the memories of better times out of his mind.He needed his thoughts to be clear now,
unsullied by friendship and sharpened by purpose.There would be enough time to admire the
castle later, when he again called Hogwarts home.So he turned his gaze from Hogwarts to
Gryffindor, and watched as she lowered her hood.

She.

It was Helga, not
Godric, who had come out to meet him. Sweet and loyal Helga,
who had always been the peacemaker amongst them.She had always been so practical, and could
not always understand how principle could overcome compromise, and how
differences could drive them all apart.But like Rowena, she’d sided with Godric in the end and made him an
outcast.Salazar felt his features
tighten as she began to speak.

“What are you doing,
Salazar?” she asked from not thirty feet away.Her voice was quiet, but he caught the slight condemnation in her
undertone. Behind him, his followers
stirred, and he sneered.

“I would think that
even you could recognize that, Helga,” he replied acidly.

He would not be
dissuaded now.Not even when her pretty
face fell slightly, and he could see the pain his anger caused.But she had cast him out with the others—or
rather, when he was being honest, left him with no choice but to depart—so he
had little concern for her feelings.Helga’s inner strength, though, had never surprised him.

“You mean war then,”
she said flatly.

He tried to smile
coldly, but it came off as another sneer.“Obviously.”

“And you bring it to
Hogwarts.”The fury in her voice
surprised him, and Salazar felt his eyebrows rise.He started to reply, but Helga cut him off
bitterly.“Damn you.You’ll destroy everything we’ve built, and
for what?Power?” she spat the word as if it was a
curse.“Principle?”

“There are some things
worth fighting for.”Salazar felt his
chin come up and his eyes sharpen.

“Yes.There are.”

He’d rarely seen her
angry, and never seen her in a fury—until now.Salazar almost snapped back, answering with icy anger of his own, but he
stopped himself in time.If he wanted to
restore Hogwarts to her former glory, he needed the others.Godric would have to go—there was no question
of that—but he couldn’t afford to make enemies of Helga and Rowena.They loved the school, too, and that was
where Helga’s wrath was born.Not in
hatred, but in love.Salazar lowered his
voice.

“I’m not here to
destroy Hogwarts, Helga,” he said earnestly.“That’s not my intention at all—”

“But you will.”Her eyes flashed, and Salazar saw the shadow
of a vision.Out of them all, Rowena had
been the most affected by Hogwarts’ Font of Power, but Helga had sometimes had
visions, too.A chill ran down his
spine, and he wondered if that was what was happening now.“You will.”

“Fortunately, that is
something we can prevent.”

Salazar felt his
followers stiffen as another voice spoke.Its owner had appeared without warning, walking up from beside Helga,
uncloaked and unmasked.Instinctively,
his body tensed and his eyes narrowed.Anti-Apparation
wards, Salazar thought immediately.That’s the first thing I’ll see to.He arched one
eyebrow, though, as the other met his gaze.Right after I deal with Godric, of course.

“Can we now?” he
challenged.His oldest friend was
deceptively calm, but Salazar knew what was going on behind those brown
eyes.Once, he’d known Godric as well as
he knew himself, and knowing that meant he was well aware how this would
end.They both had too much pride to
leave Hogwarts to the other as anything more than a smoking ruin.

“Your quarrel is with
me.”There were lines on Godric’s face
that he’d never seen before.Ten years
had changed them both.“Not with Hogwarts.”

Others were
approaching from the direction of the castle, and Salazar noticed out of the
corner of his eye as Rowena Apparated to Helga’s side.The two witches stood together, between
Godric and their students, yet staring at Salazar with identically bitter
expressions.But his gaze was for Godric
only, and for the first time he noticed how tired the other looked.

“You and I both know
there’s only one way to end this,” his former best friend continued.“And it won’t be with both of us living.So let us end it without harming
Hogwarts.”An ironic smile creased
Gryffindor’s face.“Just
you and me.One
last time.”

They had faced the
Dark wizard Ahriman together, just the two of
them.It felt like a lifetime ago when
two brash young wizards had decided to avenge the deaths of so many friends and
had faced an army together… And won.Just the two of them.

“Just
you and I,” Salazar repeated to cover his surprise, letting sarcasm creep into
his voice.He had anticipated something
more epic.“How very…practical
of you.I had expected a
full-fledged cavalry charge accompanied by the glorious Godric Gryffindor
vanquishing all my evil from the earth.”

The
smile vanished from Godric’s face.“You’re not evil, Salazar.But
that doesn’t mean I won’t stop you.”

“Come
try, then.”With a quick motion, Salazar
shook free of his cloak, forcing a smile.Marvolo caught the cloak, as he’d expected her to, but Godric’s face
showed a shadow of surprise.Salazar
arched an eyebrow.“Unless
you have reason to wait?”

“No.I don’t.”

One
of the students, a dark haired boy, stepped forward to retrieve Godric’s cloak
in turn.Salazar watched Godric’s lips
move, and knew he was thanking the teen, but could not hear what was said.Rowena, however, made a sharp motion to catch
Godric’s eye—and Salazar saw his opponent shake his head ever so slightly.

Sudden
anger rose in him from Ravenclaw’s display of loyalty, and Salazar snapped, “I
trust this will be just you and I, Godric?With no interference?”

He
saw Godric’s eyes widen—he was probably the first person to ever question a
Gryffindor’s honor—but it was Rowena’s furious reply that snapped his head
around.

“I’ll
damn you to hell, Salazar, but I won’t fight you,” she snarled.“You’re an arrogant fool, but you’re still my
friend.”

“We
are here for Hogwarts,” Helga finished for her, colder than Salazar had ever
thought sweet Hufflepuff could be.“To
make sure that Hogwarts survives the both of you.”

“Let’s get this over
with, Salazar,” Godric intervened quietly. His eyes had lost their old vitality, and held
the sadness that Slytherin would have felt if he’d paused to let himself.Today everything would end.

“Yes.”

In one motion, the two
wizards drew their wands, assuming the identical dueling stances they had
always used—the irony of the mirror image was not lost on Salazar.As he shifted his left leg back, he felt his
sword bang lightly against his left hip.It was an archaic weapon, and used almost exclusively by Muggles now,
but it was part of Wizarding heritage,
too, and had always been precious to him.The blade was a twin to the one that Godric wore, save for the emeralds
that adorned its hilt.The swords had
been gifts so long ago, from Rowena and Helga, nearly identical blades for men
who had been best friends.

It was almost
impossible to guess who had cast the first curse; one moment there was silence,
and the next the sky had exploded into color.Slytherin and Gryffindor had known one another for so long that each
could predict what the other would do as easily as they could say their own
names.Accordingly, both opened with the
other’s preferred attack; Godric had
chosen the subtle Confundus Charm, while Salazar had
chosen the brute force approach of a Disarming Charm.Neither, of course, worked, but they were
just the first thrust in a subtle feint-and-parry that rivaled the best of
fencing duels.

Their weapons,
however, were far more fatal than swords could ever be.After the first few blocked blows, Salazar
discarded the fast approach, knowing that it would never work.He had hoped, of course, to make this a short
duel, but now knew that was impossible.They knew one another far too well.

Earth and fire, power
and wind—they tossed the elements back and forth, working magic at its deepest
and deadliest.For years they had
practiced dueling together, but this was different from the past—never before
had both meant to murder.Salazar
blocked an Imperius Curse, knowing that it was meant to be no more than a
distraction, but was still almost swept off his feet by the wave of power that
came in its wake.On instinct, he
whipped his wand forward, casting the one spell that had never failed to
disable an opponent.

“Serpensortia!”

But Godric had helped
him to develop that spell and knew full well that only a parselmouth
could control the hissing cobra.So
Gryffindor sidestepped neatly, avoiding the fangs by mere inches, and very
calmly blasted the snake into smithereens.For a moment, then, their eyes met, and their ancient brotherhood reawakened.Godric arched an innocent eyebrow, and
Salazar offered an apologetic shrug in return.

“I had to try.”

“Of
course.”

They cast Stunners at
the same moment, perhaps each hoping, however briefly, that it didn’t have
to end that way—and both blocked the spells
partially, staggering as identical shocks made it through depleted
shields.Salazar shook himself, watching
Godric do the same, and then launched back into the duel.The dual failure had made the truth
inescapable.He understood.Godric understood.It wasn’t anything personal, but one of them
had to die.

“Conteriaco!”Godric flew through the air, caught by surprise, but
before he’d even landed, the other had thrown a choking spell in Salazar’s
direction.

“Suffocoum!”He blocked it,
but still found himself short of breath.Anger tightened his grip on his wand as Godric rolled to his feet.

“Imperio!”

“Rumperis!”Both failed.

“Capitiscindo!”

“Incendio!”

The hem of his robes
was on fire.“Reducto!”

Godric staggered and
almost fell.He’d finally gotten
through.

“Alienaris!”

“Diffino!”But Godric was too fast.Though clearly in pain, he’d cast the
Splitting Spell with inhuman speed, and Salazar didn’t even have time to block
it.He could only dodge, and hardly
managed to do so at all—a huge section of his robes cut away from his body and
floated harmlessly to the ground, still smoldering and smoking.Fortunately, Godric’s spell had eliminated
Salazar’s other pressing problem—his robes no longer had a hem, so the fire was
certainly not an issue.

“Obliviate!”

Oh, Godric had gotten
sneaky.Salazar actually grinned as he
blocked the curse.“Impedimenta!”

“Conjunctivitis!”

“Everbero!”The moment he
cast the spell, he knew that it would hit.Godric was just a tad slow to block—and then it did.A surge of triumph threatened to rise within
him, but Salazar knew that Godric had killed better wizards than he simply
because they grew overconfident.But the
Strike Spell had sent Godric flying backwards, and just as he hit the ground—“Expelliarmus!”

A wand he knew very
well, thirteen inches, yew, and a dragon’s heartstring core, soared through the
air, aiming perfectly for his outstretched left hand.Relief widened his once-mocking smile, and
Salazar suddenly realized that it didn’t have to end in death.He was sure
that, in time, Godric could come around—

“No!” A shadow moved
to his left, and a female voice cried out even as the Godric’s wand sped
towards his hand.It was inches away
when a black mass crashed into his left side, and Salazar grunted when another
body landed on top of his own.Desperately, he tried to shove her away, sure that it was Helga or
Rowena in a fit of rage, but the witch was on top of his left arm, and he
couldn’t get loose—

His right arm was
stuck beneath his body, as was his wand.So much for just the two of us!Anger fueled his magic, and Salazar forced
his right arm out and around, missing the fact that his wand felt wrong.“Conteriaco!”

The witch flew into
the air with a screech, twisting like a children’s toy and crashing down to the
ground with a sickening snap.He heard Rowena howl and knew that it had to
be Helga, but then he heard Hufflepuff scream his name even as his wand came up
against Godric.

“Salazar,
no!”

Wandless,
Godric was rushing to the witch’s side—and Salazar realized with shock that she
was just a girl.A
student.

Rowena and Helga
spirited towards Salazar’s unintentional victim even as Godric knelt by her
side.Mechanically, Salazar let his
wooden legs carry him towards his former friends.He hadn’t meant for this to happen—but what
had she been doing?Had the girl really thought that he would
kill an unarmed opponent?Did she think
that—

“Her arm is broken,”
Rowena said quietly.Fortunately, the
girl was unconscious, but Salazar felt the burning eyes of all the Hogwarts
students upon his back.He couldn’t
afford to show weakness with all of them watching, so hid his relief behind a
sneer.

“Foolish girl,” he snarled,
letting his relief bleed into anger and glaring at Godric.“What kind of teacher encourages his students
to become heroes?

Helga’s head snapped
around and her blue eyes burned furiously, though her voice was dangerously
sad.“She was a Slytherin, Salazar…one
of your own.Surprises you, doesn’t it,
that we kept the four houses?But
Hogwarts is Hogwarts, and is more than just the sum of her parts.”

“I—”
Salazar blinked, but wasn’t given time to consider the implications before
Godric began to rise, his voice tired and old.

“Take
her back to the castle, Rowena.”

Salazar
arched an eyebrow as she began to comply.“I think you might want to look at who is holding their wand, Godric.”

“So
might you.”His old friend snorted in
wry amusement, and alarms screeched in Salazar’s head as he saw Godric’s wrist
twitch in a very familiar manner.Immediately, the discarded wand leapt into its owner’s hand, and even as
he hurriedly lifted his own wand, Salazar again felt the manifest wrongness in
his wand.Almost afraid to do so, he
glanced down.

His
wand had snapped in two.

Slowly,
Salazar lifted his eyes.Godric’s wand
was held out, steady and strong, and trained on him unerringly.It could end, in that moment, and both knew
that it should.Their eyes met, and
Godric lowered his wand.After a long
moment, he handed it to Helga, who looked on with unsurprised resignation.Even before his friend spoke, he knew what
the words would be.

“Draw
your sword, Salazar,” Godric said gruffly.“Let’s end this.”

Salazar shrugged and threw his
useless wand aside, smiling ruefully.“Now, this, I could have expected,” he replied.“Much more like you…noble and stupid and
brave.”

Godric grinned.“One of the three, at
least.”

“Fool,” Salazar cursed, but
Godric continued to smile.

”Always.”

And they drew blades.

Godric had always been the
better swordsman of the two, lightning quick and completely unafraid.Salazar, on the other hand, was cool and
deliberate; he calculated before making every move.Godric fenced with an instinct that had been
born during decades of training, but Salazar had never been able to take that
risk.He simply wasn’t the natural
swordsman that his opponent always had been.He had to think.

Predictably,
Godric came at him impossibly fast.Recognizing the move, Salazar sidestepped and parried, riposting with a
thrust towards Godric’s hands, always his weakest spot.But the resulting parry carried his blade
well clear of its target, and he had to block a high blow before resuming the
attack.They had not fenced in over a
decade, but little enough had changed; the movements still flowed like water,
and the challenge could have set his heart racing even if the stakes hadn’t
been so high.Moments passed, and
Salazar lost himself in the steady cut and thrust of the match, watching and
listening and predicting.Almost
immediately, Godric stepped forward, seeking to force him back, but Salazar
refused to yield.Godric’s face was hard
and set; all joking was gone, and their blades clashed, clanging and shining in
the dim autumn light.

Out
of the corner of his eye, Salazar noticed that Rowena hadn’t left after
all.She stood side by side with Helga,
and the two witches watched in silence, their faces glum and eyes sad.

Parry.Cut.Thrust.Sidestep.Lunge.He almost lost his hand, but whipped his blade away just in time.It was a deadly dance, and Godric’s left arm
was bleeding; he’d flung it in the way of a slash that would have cut his
throat open from ear to ear.Salazar
twisted to the left, hurriedly interposing his blade between his body and
death, but wasn’t quite fast enough.The
sharp kiss of pain exploded along his left leg as Godric got his first cut in,
and Salazar jumped back before more damage could be done.Godric followed him, leaning in and pressing
the offensive—

There.Salazar saw the opening even as it
disappeared, the single weakness in Godric’s guard.But their blades continued flashing as the
sun slipped fully behind a cloud, and even Salazar’s sharply focused mind
realized how much time had passed.Sweat
poured down his face, and Godric was breathing hard and fast.They were tiring quickly now, for neither
wizard was as young as they had once been, and this wasn’t the method in which
their kind usually fought.Perhaps in
youth they had fenced for sport, but now the duel depended fully upon
experience and skill.Both knew it could
not last much longer; at eighty-three and eighty-four, they had to end soon.

Parry.Dance.Ignore the leaden pain in the legs.His limbs were growing impossibly heavy, and
Godric was beginning to slow.They were
too old for this foolishness, but both were too stubborn to stop.Salazar gritted his teeth and ignored the
stinging pain as salty sweat poured into his wounds.He was focused.He was cool.Another man, even one half his age, would never
have lasted so long.

Again.As
Godric tired, he was slowing, and the milliseconds between his attack and his
reset were lengthening.Of course,
Salazar had slowed just as much, but he was certain that his defense had not
weakened.Leave it to Godric to continue
to take chances and use the advanced moves—And
again.Decision crystallized before
him.

One
move could end this.Such a quick
conclusion would require a foolish and risky attack that was far more fitted to
heroic Gryffindor than calculating Slytherin—but he saw the possibility and
recognized that for what it was.Chance.Salazar
realized that the effort could fail, he knew, and might very well do so.The odds of success were only around fifty
percent, but somehow that was fitting.He smiled grimly.Let the
fates decide it, then.He knew what
he had to do.Let this end.

For
a moment, he considered Helga and Rowena, and thought of their pain.Neither deserved to be caught in this feud,
but both would forever be changed by the outcome.Then he thought of Godric, the one friend
he’d dared call brother—oh, they were different, so different, but in those
differences laid their strength.Once,
they would have died to save each other.Now only one could survive.

He
struck.

Perhaps
destiny had intervened; Godric tripped right at that moment.Salazar’s attack combined with his opponent’s
momentum to send them crashing together, and their bodies collided with a
thump.But neither made a sound.Only the sharp snap of a breaking
blade split the cool air, and a pregnant hush fell on both sides of
spectators.For Salazar, then, the world
seemed to move in slow motion.He heard
Rowena cry out, and felt his numb fingers release the blood soaked hilt of his
sword.There was blood everywhere—in his
eyes, on his arms, on his face.His body
was suddenly made of lead, and he couldn’t force his limbs to move.As his sword hit the ground, they unbalanced
and Godric’s body crashed down on top of him.

Salazar
landed on his knees, blinking.He was
cold, suddenly, and shivered, hardly hearing the student’s cries from behind
his back.Rowena and Helga rushed
forward, but Salazar felt like he was moving underwater as he turned his head.

Godric
lay beside him, his face composed and still.He looked so peaceful now, with none of the cares and worries of time
weighing upon him.His brown eyes were
open, but they held no blame, and Salazar imagined that those were the same
innocent and eager eyes of the man who had once been his friend.Godric’s ruby hilted sword lay beside him,
still gleaming, beautiful and whole, as unbreakable and unmarred as Helga had
long ago charmed it to be.But blood
covered Godric’s chest, ruining the ageless memory of Salazar’s best
friend.A splintered and broken blade
glittered from where it had been thrust—straight through the heart.

The heart of a lion.

Slowly, Salazar stood, forcing his
legs to support his weight.Helga and
Rowena had stopped just an arm’s distance away, but they were as frozen as he,
staring at Godric’s dead body.The hilt
of Salazar’s broken sword lay at Rowena’s feet, but she made no move to touch
it.

“Are
you all right?” Helga asked in the silence, her voice choked with tears.

“Yes.”He felt strangely empty.There was none of the relief that he’d
expected to feel, only vague numbness.He was covered in blood, but it was Godric’s blood.

How
did we come to this?For a moment,
he felt the raging loss of his best friend, and Salazar was tempted to term
Godric’s death an involuntary suicide.Then he shuddered.No.The regret faded immediately under a wave
of cold reality.We both chose our
paths.The fault, if there is any, is
mine.But he would keep his head
high.Salazar Slytherin had won.Hogwarts was his.

After
a moment, he stepped forward and retrieved Godric’s famous sword.It was bloodied but unbroken, and he could
see the name Gryffindor gleaming on the blade.For just a second, he was tempted to keep the
sword, but instead he turned and faced his former colleagues.

“Take
it.“He was pleased with how steady his
voice sounded.“He would want you to
have it.”

Tears
streaming down her cheeks, Helga accepted the Gryffindor sword, just as Rowena
would have taken his if their roles had been reversed.But the ladies were silent, and they stared
at him, awaiting his next move.To
the victor goes the spoils, he thought coldly, feeling triumph rise within
him.Hogwarts is mine!One look at Godric’s dead body, though,
killed his sense of victory, and the Hogwarts students were approaching.Their steps were cautious and frightened,
nothing like the jubilant strides of his own advancing
students.

But
they were his students, now.Or most of
were them, anyway.Salazar cleared his
throat and turned to face them.

“Hogwarts
will be entering a new age,” he told them coldly.“Those of you who wish to stay—and are acceptable
candidates—may do so.But today ends the
weakness of Godric Gryffindor.Together
we shall realize Hogwarts’ true greatness, and become a symbol of purity and
power in the Wizarding world.”

***

They won, in the end, of course.Fair Rowena and sweet Helga proved to be more than my match, and little
by little, they whittled down my defenses until I acquiesced.Muggleborns and Half-bloods are again allowed
at Hogwarts, and the school is a shining beacon of equality and second
chances.Not, perhaps, what I intended,
but all the same, there is greatness in Hogwarts.And after all, there is always Durmstrang, to
carry on my legacy.Hogwarts, as Rowena
and Helga keep reminding me, is the sum of all of us.She is not just mine to shape, this beautiful
and mystifying school that harbors all of our secrets, even from one another.

In these happier and bittersweet days, I have almost
regretted the Chamber…but I think, perhaps, that it will be safe enough.None of my sons have exhibited the skill, and
nor has my daughter.Best leave it,
then, without telling the others what I have done.They would never understand.Or at least Rowena and Helga would not.I think, though, that Godric would.He always did.

Leaving Hogwarts was perhaps the second most important
moment of my life.Founding it, of
course, was the first.But if leaving
the school was the second, it only claims that honor because my departure—our
disagreement—forced Godric and I onto a path for which that neither of us could
predict the destination.My leaving
predated his death, and possibly, quite probably, caused it.

So I leave again.Now, for the last time, and I seek a Veil that few know exists.Just one step will bring my end, and after
four years again at Hogwarts, it is time.I go to join Godric, and perhaps, if I can scrape up enough humility, to
ask his forgiveness.

Oh, know the perils, read the
signs,
the warning history shows,
for our Hogwarts is in danger
from external, deadly foes
and we must unite inside her or we'll crumble from within.

//

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